TOKYO- Oil prices slid on Thursday after OPEC and allies such as Russia agreed to ease record supply curbs from August, though the drop was cushioned by hopes for a swift US demand pick-up after a bigger-than-expected drawdown from the country’s crude stocks.
Brent crude fell 13 cents, or 0.3 percent, at $43.66 a barrel, and US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude dropped 18 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $41.02 a barrel. They rose 2 percent the previous day, helped by the US crude inventories drop.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, known as
OPEC+, agreed on Wednesday to scale back oil production cuts from August as the global economy slowly recovers from the coronavirus pandemic.
OPEC+ has been cutting output since May by 9.7 million barrels per day, or 10 percent of global supply, but from August, cuts will officially taper to 7.7 million bpd until December.
